Sen. Lindsey Graham Looks Like He’s About To Cry While Begging For Campaign Donations On Fox News: ‘Help Me!’

Lindsey Graham is already a bit sleep deprived these days, and now his ever-changing opinion on whether you can fill a Supreme Court seat during an election year seems to have put him behind the eight ball when it comes to campaign finance in his heavily-contested senate race. Perhaps that’s why the South Carolina senator appeared on Fox News this week begging for donations to his campaign, stating that he’s being “killed financially.”

“My opponent will raise almost $100 million,” Graham said of Democratic opponent Jamie Harrison. “The most money in the history of the state in a senate race was by me in 2014, when I spent $13 million.”

According to 538, Graham is still favored to win his seat, but in an appearance on the conservative cable news network, he was visibly upset by what’s happened in recent days following the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Supreme Court Justice who died last Friday of cancer. Her passing leaves open a seat on the highest court in the land, and Graham drew immediate criticism after abruptly changing his stance on whether that seat should be filled before the November election. Just four years ago, Graham was aggressively against doing a similar thing, leading the way in a senate that never held hearings about Barack Obama’s appointment, Merrick Garland.

Graham has, of course, changed his stance and insisted he is in favor of Donald Trump filling the seat regardless of what happens in November. And because of that stance, a huge influx of money has come into the campaign for his South Carolina seat, with those angry about the flip-flop donating millions of dollars to Harrison. It was enough for him to look visibly shaken on TV, noting how much money has been raised against him in the hours after Ginsburg’s death.

“He raised $6 million in the time that Justice Ginsburg passed away within 72 hours,” Graham said before begging people to donate to his campaign. As it turns out, he’s done this a number of times over the last few days, specifically speaking to viewers on Fox News to donate to his campaign while appearing on the network.

It’s unclear just how much Graham’s stance on the court seat will impact his standing in the race, as well as how much a late influx of cash for his opponent will impact the election’s result. But what is clear is that a sitting U.S. senator who is not worried about losing would not go on Fox News in near tears asking for donations and saying he was “overwhelmed” if it was something he was not actually very concerned about.